Saturday was my first college football game! My friends and I went over to my sisters' house and ate hamburgers before we left (already an amazing start to an evening.) I never realized how early you have to get to a football game to get good seats! In high school we came about a half hour before kickoff and (at least if you were a senior) you got the best seats in the house. In college, we came two hours early and still had to sit in the back row!

This was the first game in the new stadium and everyone, including me, was very excited! Luckily we had been shown all of the cheers during welcome week so it wasn't as hard to get the hang of being in the student section. It was amazing feeling like a part of the school, and fitting in. It really is sinking in that I am a part of this college community and that it is a part of me. I feel like a real studen

t, especially when game attendees stop me on the street after the game and ask me the score, or ask me directions around campus.

I've been here for three weeks now and I'm all ready feeling happier and more accepted here than I ever did in my home town. Students are so much friendlier and willing to help than I thought they would be. If I ever feel lost or out of place, or when I don't know the correct cheer at the football game, a friendly upper-classmen would just laugh and help me to get it right next time.

Football games are a place where the entire school comes together for the common cause of cheering on our team to a victory, and the Gophers did get a victory, of course! The school's mascot, Goldy revved up the crowd with pushups counting out the team score and crowd surfing up the stands. And when we spelled out M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A, and yelled "yeah Gophers" it could be heard echoing after we were done. It made me love my school so much to hear our pride reverberating through the city, and to see the masses of maroon and gold speckling the stadium.

I love school spirit and my first college football game made me so happy, even though my throat is sore from all the yelling and I am very proud to be a gopher!